R v British Broadcasting Corporation and Another, ex parte Referendum Party
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 24 April 1997 |
| Date | 24 April 1997 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
Queen's Bench Divisional Court
Before Lord Justice Auld and Mr Justice Popplewell
Broadcasting - allocation of party election broadcasts - previous electorial support relevant
It was not irrational for a broadcaster to include previous electoral support in its general criteria for allocating party election broadcasts to political parties.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held when giving reserved reasons for having dismissed on April 18 an application for judicial review of the decisions of the BBC and the Independent Television Commission to allocate the applicant only one five-minute party election broadcast on their respective television networks.
The applicant was a political party founded in 1994. It was fielding 547 candidates in the 1997 election, claimed to have written pledges of support from about 200,000 potential electors, and appeared to have 3 per cent support in the polls.
It had been allocated by both the respondents only one five-minute broadcast on each network, in contrast to the allocation to the Conservative and Labour parties of five five-minute slots and to the Liberal Democrats of four five- minute slots on each network. The applicant sought judicial review of the allocation on the ground, inter alia, that it was irrational because the respondents had included past electoral support in their criteria for allocating broadcasts, which a new party could not show, and had failed to take account of the electoral size and support, in particular the large number of its candidates.
Mr Geoffrey Robertson, QC and Mr Gavin Millar for the Referendum Party; Mr David Pannick, QC and Mr Paul Goulding for the BBC; Mr Christopher Clarke, QC and Mr Mark Shaw for the ITC; Mr William Wood for the Independent Television Association.
LORD JUSTICE AULD, giving the judgment of the court, said that both respondents were obliged to secure that their programmes preserved due impartiality. The respondents had been given a wide discretion as to the rules they could make, inter alia, in relation to the allocation of broadcasts, to ensure that that obligation was fulfilled.
Both respondents either in their guidelines or as a matter of practice included in their criteria for allocating broadcasts a threshold requirement of 50 candidates which entitled a party to at least one broadcast, and, for further broadcasts, the number of candidates...
To continue reading
Request your trial